Waking Up like Breaking Up is Hard To Do
by droidgirl
Summary: The short story of a fledgeling. Set in Season 2


You were walking home that night from the Bronze, slightly wasted, very happy. Cordelia had laughed at something you said, and you think maybe, just maybe, she didn't think you were a huge loser.

Maybe someday, after this hell they called High School was over, she might laugh at something you say once again, and then there'll be coffee dates and long twilight walks by the beach. Or short. They'd want to get in before the sun set completely. Eventually, one of you would blush and stutter out those three little words. There'll be a diamond ring involved somewhere along the line, and then flowers and churches. There would be fat babies and tears about not being able to fit into one's pair of favourite jeans they've owned forever. There would be tears when the youngest fat baby left for college (somewhere out of state hopefully) and there would be fat grandchildren babies.

But that night, you were just a senior in high school, stumbling home in the dark. You weren't drunk enough to not realize that the fantasy you just had about Cordelia Chase, that fantasy was never going to happen. You knew you were going to die when that _thing_ grabbed you out of the street, and sunk its fangs into you. It hurt. A lot.

Next thing you know, you're staring at a wooden slab two inches away from your nose, and you can't move your arms and oh god oh god oh god you were scared. You have never been more afraid in your entire life, not even when that _thing_ ate you.

Then you realize you're not even breathing; you're dead. That was your coffin. Not that it made it any less terrifying.

And you're hungry.

You started clawing at the wood, and it gives. You're amazingly strong; it still hurts your fingers though, and by the time you reach the earth covering the coffin, they're bleeding. By the time your reach the surface, the bleeding has stopped, and the skin is already starting to heal. For the first time since you woke up, you feel powerful. You feel indestructible.

Still hungry.

Someone is cowering against another gravestone nearby, sobbing. You can _smell_ the fear. You can smell all sorts of things really; the garbage from the bin twenty feet away. The grease from the Doublemeat Palace two blocks down the street. The blood.

Most of all, you can smell the blood. Before you even think about it, you've reached for the cowering figure, and you're biting her in the neck. You don't need a mirror to know that your face is exactly like that _thing_ that killed you. You _are_ that thing now.

When there's nothing left to drink, you look down at her face, and realize its Katie, the girl who sat next to you in Math every year since you remember. You wonder what she's doing in the graveyard at this time, when you spot the white flowers scattered on your grave.

You smile gently, touched oddly, but not even the slightest bit guilty that you have just killed the mousy shy girl who was secretly in love with you. You drop her on top of your grave, her flowers surrounding her like a frame, and you think she looks so lovely.

It's not that this girl was beneath you or anything; just a piece of meat for your enjoyment. You just had to eat, that's all. You're not evil or anything now; you just had to work with the new circumstances.

You take a deep breathe, even though you don't need to. You sense other_ things_ like you in the crypt nearby, and you hear the soft whimperings of a human. You wonder if you should join them, but really, damp and cold crypts just isn't your scene.

Home. That's where you should go. Mom wouldn't mind; she's still Mom. Would you kill her? You're not sure. You haven't ruled out the idea. A guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do.

"Hey buddy," a girl says behind you.

You turn around and find a girl with golden blonde hair…Fluffy? No, her name is Buffy. She looks at you, her mouth set in a grim line, her eyes hard as stone. You wonder how you ever thought she was just another vapid _girl _in History class.

The woman in front of you is anything but a mere girl, and you know this because there is a wooden stake sticking from your chest, where your heart is.

_Vampire, that's what I am_, you think as you crumble to dust and blow away in the night breeze.

That's what you were anyway.


End file.
